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Sites of production: An examination of Jeremy Deller's It is what it is: Conversations about Iraq
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Sites of production: An examination of Jeremy Deller's It is what it is: Conversations about Iraq
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SITES OF PRODUCTION: AN EXAMINATION OF JEREMY DELLER’S IT IS WHAT IT IS: CONVERSATIONS ABOUT IRAQ by Rebecca Nichole Kopp A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES May 2011 Copyright 2011 Rebecca Nichole Kopp ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to my thesis advisors, Michael Ned Holte, Mary Jane Jacob, Rhea Anastas, as well as the Master of Public Art Studies faculty who advised me over the course of this project: Joshua Decter, Gloria Sutton, Elizabeth Lovins and Ruth Wallach. Additional thanks to my fellow students, friends and family for their unconditional support and inspiration throughout this process. Lastly, this project would not have been possible without the support of many interviewees who were extremely generous of their time, especially Jeremy Deller, Esam Pasha and Nato Thompson. The encouragement and intellectual support they provided was vital to the development of the thesis and I am forever grateful. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii List of Figures v Abstract vii Introduction: It Is What It Is 1 Chapter One: Sites of Production 6 New Museum Beginnings 7 On the Road 9 Snapshots of Experience 11 YouTube Videos 18 The Institutional Apparatus 20 Hammer and Museum of Contemporary Art 22 It Is What It Is Text 23 Chapter Two: Early Years of Social Practice 25 Chapter Three: Later Years of Social Practice 41 Conclusion: It Was What It Was 49 Bibliography 57 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Installation view, New Museum, New York, 2009. 9 Figure 2. On the Road Participants, Tennessee, USA, 2009. 14 Figure 3. Installation view, Hammer Museum, 2009. 22 Figure 4. Installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art 22 Chicago, 2009. Figure 5. It Is What It Is book cover, 2011. 23 Figure 6. Social Practice Diagram, 2010. 25 Figure 7. The Road Trip RV and destroyed car, 2009. 49 v ABSTRACT For little over a decade artistic practice in the United States has become intently “focused upon on the sphere of inter-human relations” (Nicolas Bourriaud). Contemporary theorists have presented a variety of ideas concerning the resurgence of this artistic tendency that emerged half a century ago. Using It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, which was presented across the U.S. and at three major museums in 2009 by British Turner prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, as case study to further delineate this artistic form of expression, this thesis addresses recent theoretical developments within the broader social practice movement. Deller’s project emphasized the complicated nature of these theories in action within the contemporary moment, and testified to its heightened use in the public sphere through shifts higher education and institutional programming. The evaluation of Deller’s piece emphasizes the art-historical importance of this work and more broadly contends with the contemporary conflict between those who debate art’s ability to transform consciousness within the public sphere. 1 INTRODUCTION: IT IS WHAT IT IS In 2009 Turner prize-winning British artist Jeremy Deller debuted his second major piece in the United States which addressed U.S. perspectives on a tendentious contemporary topic. It Is What It Is: Conversation’s About Iraq promoted open dialogue about Iraq’s history and culture through person-to-person conversations at three major U.S. museums and a number of public sites across North America. 1 Carefully selected collaborators with intimate knowledge and experience of present day Iraq addressed a public immersed in conflicting information and knowledge regarding how the conflict started and why it was being maintained. Eighteen institutions and multiple individuals came together to assist Deller implement It Is What It Is. 2 A thorough examination of the work’s methodology reveals the extensive apparatus through which it was produced. This apparatus became a focal point with broader implications than the underlying political agenda and purported intent to disseminate information about Iraq. Undoubtedly the political content of the work and the artist’s intended purpose – to discuss Iraqi art and culture – were the central focus of its presentations. This thesis contends that as the work becomes more thoroughly historicized, its social practice tactics and production apparatus will come to define it as a work of contemporary art rather than its subject matter. 1 Each of these “experts,” as they were called- came from unique areas of study like geology, history, art, science, sociology and business. 2 This figure includes: three museums, one public arts organization, thirteen host institutions, and one Dutch gallery. 2 Outside of its presentation at museums and public sites, the piece existed on the Internet through videos and an official website. Numerous lectures and a book published under the same name in 2011 provided numerous points of access to the content of the work both during and after its literal presentations. While these various points of entry provide windows from which the present day viewer can learn about and relate to the information that is being presented, its convivial, temporal and ephemeral nature make the work’s documentation that much more historically essential. Secondary viewers cannot fully access this piece in the same way primary viewers did, considering the difficulty in having the same initial cathartic experience of one-on-one interaction and dialogical exchange. We can however look to these secondary sites for powerful snapshots into this piece, which many have argued was ripe with risks and rewards applicable to the contemporary moment. Deller’s piece arrived on the contemporary art scene precisely when prominent cultural producers in the U.S. were concerned about the lack of address the Iraq conflict had been receiving since its declaration. In the winter of 2008 the popular academic art journal, October, published a collaborative set of essays known as the October Questionnaire, edited by Benjamin Buchloh and Rachel Churner. This questionnaire asked creative professionals “how they would 3 evaluate and explain the absence of visible opposition to the Iraq War during the past four - almost five years.” 3 The six-part questionnaire emphasized two key points. First, that the Bush Administration had spread fear about speaking out due to the signing of the USA Patriot Act. This act had “dramatically reduced restrictions on the law’s ability to search” personal information such as “telephone calls and e-mail” 4 in order to “deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States.” 5 Secondly, many felt art world critics were placing less value on political work so many artists chose not to engage with it in order to protect their careers and livelihood. 6 It Is What It Is was quite unique in light of these circumstances as Deller was supported both conceptually and financially in making a work about Iraq; it was the artist’s ambiguous opposition to the war that distanced him from the circumstances outlined in the questionnaire. Deller’s conversation based strategy as well as his interactive and collaborative tactics were emblematic of the social practice movement which reemerged as a prominent genre in the 2000s. The movement continues to be critically theorized and is currently being represented to the public through various institutional sources, both academic and cultural. It Is What It Is is an 3 Buchloh and Churner, “Questionnaire,” October Journal 123 (Winter 2008), 4. Originally from: Alexander Cockburn, “Whatever Happened to the Anti-War Movement?,” New Left Review 46 (July/August 2007), Introduction. 4 Wikipedia. (February 20, 2011) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act (accessed February 19, 2011). 5 FinCEN, US Treasury Department. http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/ (accessed March 9, 2011). 6 Buchloh and Churner, “Questionnaire,” October Journal 123 (Winter 2008) p.30 4 ideal case study for the examination of the theoretical evolution of social practice, as Deller and his critics have yet to fully apply the work through this historical lens. Artist and academic Mary LeClere is one of the only writers to thoroughly ascribe Deller’s piece to one of social practice’s cornerstone theories. In her 2010 lecture at the University of Southern California she claimed that the work was based in relational aesthetics. 7 While overlaps are clearly evident between Deller’s work and this version of social practice, which was defined by French curator Nicolas Bourriaud in 1998, Deller’s artistic strategy should not be labeled as such, seeing that it shares characteristics and qualities of many other versions found within the broader social practice movement. The artist’s preferred title: It Is What It Is also provides clues as to how the piece could be theoretically positioned. According to Deller, the use of the colloquial phrase references military slang that often describes the unfavorable but inevitable realities of war. It has been used often in the past decade to describe broader conditions of unfavorable states and has become cliché in convivial exchange. Assuredly many have used the phrase in recent years, implying that most can relate to its meaning. As co-curator Laura Hoptman of the New Museum said in a presentation about the piece, what made the phrase an appropriate title is that many people have a different take on its meaning but almost everyone could find meaning in it. This universal quality allowed Deller 7 LeClere, Mary. “Untitled MFA Lecture on New Work Related to Relational Aesthetics,” (lecture, University of Southern California Graduate Fine Arts Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA, October 6, 2010). 5 to get at the problematic nature of his chosen topic while also remaining somewhat politically neutral and self-reflexive in the face of any potential anger or unrest that his content may have caused for those who engaged with it. Deller implied that the use of the phrase was a precautionary measure and could ultimately be seen as a kind gesture to his participants who were often opening old wounds to engage with the given theme. Despite Deller describing his use of the contentious subject as his way of “digging around in a wound to see what would happen,” it is evident that he had good intentions. 8 A self-proclaimed provocateur, he was willing to make a bold statement as long as he felt that he could back it up with a meaningful exchange. This was exhibited through the piece’s numerous sites of production and its applicability to recent developments within social practice. Its noteworthy characteristics, such as its mobility, “post activist” positioning and institutional apparatus all draw attention to Deller’s provocative yet meaningful intentions. 8 Jeremy Deller, interview by author, telephone from Los Angeles to London, February 4, 2011. 6 CHAPTER ONE: SITES OF PRODUCTION Inherent in this project’s conceptualization were numerous sites of production, both physical and virtual. The work was developed over the course of two years, involved eighteen institutions, multiple institutional employees and over one hundred guest participants. 9 Each of the three exhibitions required approximately thirty-five individuals with contemporary knowledge about Iraq to host daily conversations. The New Museum staff conceptualized these individuals as experts because they were each an expert of their own experience within Iraq. Their perspectives and backgrounds varied; there were engineers, architects and physicians as well as translators, teachers and military personnel. Deller described the enlistment of these individuals, the museums and host organizations as essential to the project’s realization as the execution of his concept required a vast amount of support. Each organization’s staff and their invited experts interacted with visitors and the public on a daily basis. As the project’s facilitator, Deller was not required to be present during the museum’s month long exhibitions nor was he required to lead conversations on the road. Projects like It Is What It Is draw attention to the role of the artist in producing social practice work within the institutional arena and the extent to which museums and collaborators contribute to the execution of the works within this genre. While stipulations regarding Deller’s responsibilities to participate at the museums were undefined, he did travel with the piece for three weeks during its 9 Hammer Curators and “It Is What It Is” Collaborators, “Field Trip: The Iraq Conversation in Iraq the US.” (public talk, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, April 19, 2009). Hammer Museum Website, http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/157 (accessed February 20, 2011). 7 cross-country tour. The presentations in the museums and on the road were seen by Deller as separate initiatives. They had different curatorial and financial support and Deller’s interest and participation within each varied. These differences raised questions related to his authorial perspective on working within museums versus with smaller organizations in the public. Deller seemed more interested in what the American landscape would generate. He trusted the museums to collaborate with him on a curatorial level, in presenting the work in a meaningful way - so his lack of participation in that capacity came as no surprise to the museums. These and many more pertinent issues were raised by this project as it was complexly collaborative. Social practice is a movement that is not just dependent on the creator and participant but which places great emphasis on the mutual respect and trust that comes from generating meaning collectively. Deller’s work is a shining example of people working together toward producing a work in collaboration. New Museum Beginnings While It Is What It Is had many sites of presentation, it began as a six- week exhibition at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art in February 2009. The work was presented under the Three M Project as one element of a four-person group show sponsored by the Deutsche Bank and three partnering U.S. contemporary art museums. At the time It Is What It Is was one of the New Museum’s best attended shows on record. 10 10 Esam Pasha, interview by author, telephone Los Angeles to New York, January 28, 2011. 8 The design of the exhibition space was purposefully minimal due to the project’s conceptual nature and conversational emphasis. Of the visual materials in the room there was a wall displaying comparative outlines of the United States and of Iraq, a large banner announcing the show’s title in Arabic and English, as well as a small series of photographs. The room’s most prominent feature and arguably the piece’s most necessary object both at the museums and on the road was the rusted shell of a decimated car 11 which had been mangled in a 2007 Baghdad bombing. 12 Co-curator Amy Mackie of the New Museum described the environment as a “casual, informal and comfortable place were visitors could sit down and engage,” but most often people were interested in listening to conversations that others had initiated. 13 Guests approached the project in a variety of ways. Some came prepared with slides or objects to present while others came “just to talk. To have questions asked of them and to give the museum goers something they couldn’t necessarily find other places.” 14 11 In May of 2007, after four months of negotiation, Dutch curator Robert Klüijver succeeded in shipping this and another bombed vehicle from Al-Mutanabbi to the Netherlands for an event entitled “War on Error,” which included a daylong discussion and performances, as well as the exhibition of the vehicles on Leidse Plein Square in Amsterdam. One or both of the cars have subsequently been exhibited in Rotterdam, Enschede, Utrecht, The Hague and Houston, Texas. Concept: Partisan Public; Logistics and organization: Robert Klüijver for the “War on Error Event.” project support: IKV Pax Christi, Hivos and the Green Party. Donated to the New Museum by Robert Klüijverre. http://www.conversationsaboutiraq.org/description.php (accessed November 22, 2010). 12 The car was initially to be displayed in London as public artwork but the commission fell through, at which time it became the visual cornerstone for conceptualizing of It Is What It Is. Jeremy Deller interview, YouTube, Creative Time, 2009. 13 Hammer Museum Curators and “It Is What It Is” Road Trip Collaborators, “Field Trip: The Iraq Conversations in the U.S.” (lecture, Hammer Museum, April 19, 2009). Hammer Museum Website. http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/157 (accessed February 2, 2011). 14 Ibid. 9 On the Road From March 25-April 19th, 2009 the project travelled from New York to Los Angeles with the support of the public art organization Creative Time NYC. The project partnered with thirteen smaller organizations as a way to “broaden the dialogues begun at the New Museum with diverse audiences across the nation” 15 that might not have access to New York, L.A., and Chicago. 16 The public was “encouraged to bring objects related to Iraq and to participate in conversations with [Iraqi artist and journalist] Esam Pasha, and [U.S. Marine veteran] Sergeant Jonathan Harvey.” 17 Pasha and Harvey served as the only experts on the road and were responsible for fielding the majority of exchanges. Creative Time curator, 15 Creative Time, “On the Road,”www.conversationsaboutiraq.org, (accessed November 27, 2010). 16 While this portion of “It Is What It Is” was presented outside of the purview of the Three M Project, it was funded and received curatorial support from Creative Time and the New Museum. 17 Ibid. Figure 1: Installation view, New Museum, New York, 2009. “It is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq,” April 21 – May 17, 2009. Photo by Benoit Pailley. 10 Nato Thompson, co-curated and organized the trip and two members of his staff joined the sojourn as documentarians. The participating host institutions provided Deller and his crew a local point of entry into the communities they visited, and by way of their resources, the project gained visibility at each locale. It was through these organizations that the public became aware of the particulars of the crew’s location and times of the project’s operation. These host sites were extremely diverse in scope and scale; they ranged from smaller museums and non-profits, to communes and community collectives. Many of their mission statements aligned with Deller’s stated objectives for the project. The stop on March 26 th at Washington D.C.’s National Mall was supported by a local initiative called “Street Scenes: Projects for D.C.,” which mounts temporary art interventions with the hope of “liberating works” from the “confines of the museums and galleries.” Another organization supporting that site was Provisions Library, which “amplifies compelling voices” within the arts and social change arena which “challenge and redefine the mainstream.” 18 Another stop on March 28 th highlighted the Slought Foundation, a non-profit institution in Philadelphia that moves from the “margins to the center” of the “institutional landscape” as they undertake “collaborations with a wide range of partners.” 19 Deller was deliberate in researching and finalizing all the 18 Their mission statement reinforced one of Deller’s overall intentions on the road trip, which was to preface knowledge gained through experience over that from the media. 18 One of Deller’s few declared intentions was to challenge knowledge disseminated by the media in an effort to illicit something he felt was more truthful. 19 The Slought Foundation, “Mission Statement,” http://slought.org/info/overview.php (accessed November 29, 2010). 11 potential site options available for the project’s road presentations, Thompson said. 20 They affiliated themselves with a mixture of partners so that the work would have heterogeneity. One of Deller’s goals was to combat the media’s misrepresentations of Iraq and by reaching a diverse group of individuals, his message had the potential to proliferate among many economic classes, social groups, races and ages. Snapshots of Experience The video documentation taken on the road revealed the wide range of conversations that took place over the course of the three week cross country tour. While some conversations touched upon contentious issues such as differences of religion or character, others stayed on the surface and simply fleshed out people’s curiosities about the war. The videos had an in-the-moment quality; as project facilitator, Deller’s roles in the conversations were minimal as he only stepped in to dissuade conflicting opinions or invigorate a stalemated exchange. He was documented in one or two videos answering direct questions about his conceptualization of the project, but aside from those instances Sergeant Jonathon Harvey and Esam Pasha fielded most of the inquires. The following transcriptions of a number of videos provide examples highlighting the range of conversations that took place and the nature of their content. They also support the claim that the work’s complicated apparatus through which the content was and continues to be produced and organized, deters the secondary viewer from fully engaging in the unexpected and 20 Nato Thompson, interview by author, telephone Los Angeles to New York, January 5, 2011. 12 comforting one-on-one exchanges that the project created. 21 According to host sponsor, Justine Ludwig of Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, the piece “was an intervention into everyday life” and served many by providing a forum for an unexpected exchange. The conversations “put people at ease” because the crew’s approach was “personal and human. At times war was not even discussed.” 22 On April 1 st Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri hosted the project; this was the sixth road site on the thirteen-stop journey. Despite the schedule being particularly full with multiple sites throughout the city, there was only one Creative Time sponsored video posted from this locale. 23 The featured video dated April 2, 2009 was shot at the Kansas City Art Institute near the city’s celebrated Plaza district. 24 A member of the Creative Time documentary crew interviewed artist John Hilger, a current student who had served in the Navy during the first years of the Iraq conflict. He was twenty-one at the time of his deployment and looking back said there were things related to his tour that he wished he had not been involved with, but “what can you do - right?” he concluded as the screen cut to black. The clip was only three minutes long and 21 Ludwig, Justine. Participating road site sponsor at Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, Interview by author, email, February 2, 2011. 22 Ibid. 23 As fiscal and creative sponsor of the project’s road iteration, the Creative Time organization documented conversations and posted these to the project’s main website. Other videos were taken by host institutions but remain scattered across YouTube and have yet to be more distinctly labeled, organized and or paired with those taken by Creative Time. There is a juxtaposition here between the official and unofficial. Ironically some of the host institutions videos are more revealing and candid and the project would undoubtedly benefit from a collectivizing of these materials. 24 Creative Time, “Kansas City, Mo.” (April 2, 2009) Creative Time New York’s Channel, YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/creativetimenewyork#p/search/0/KNcTjxbziJY (accessed February 2, 2011). 13 mostly showed Hilger flipping through the pages of his personal war diary. Each page overflowed with color, magazine cut-outs and countdown calendars used to visually mark off the days he had left to serve. Looking back through the journal Hilger described its bursts of color and text as “kind of disgusting” considering his mindset at that time, which was to remain true to his purpose and pursue the opposing forces. Although he never straightforwardly verbalized regret, his tone revealed how he must have felt. One wonders what the secondary viewer could gain from witnessing this sentiment in such a distilled and edited fashion as the only testament to the crew’s stop in Kansas City. The video portrays Hilger’s discomfort and confusion about being involved in the war and the viewer is left with drama and suspense. Undoubtedly, the way in which the Kansas City clip was edited left the viewer at a proverbial cliff, hanging on the sentiment- what can you do? And many of the other videos by Creative Time do the same. Was part of the piece’s overall intent to leave viewers feeling as if there was nothing one could do about Iraq? Was the title It Is What It Is meant to have suggested this from the beginning? As many of the videos similarly feature dramatic moments, the secondary viewer begins to see how they are only momentary snapshots and reflections of what Deller and his crew experienced. Despite this they successfully alluded to the turmoil and frustration the topic elicited and proved how eager the public was to engage in conversation about Iraq. Creative Time’s photo documentation, like this image from Tennessee, also revealed the relaxed yet intensely connective nature of the exchanges. 14 Another video that highlights the range of conversations is from the project’s ninth road site. While there are a few videos from New Orleans this particular one was recorded at the House of Dance and Feathers. A gentleman, who seemed to be the venue’s proprietor, explained his intimate reactions about the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in relation to the efforts to rebuild Iraq. New Orleanians were distraught over that fact that Iraq was receiving money to rebuild while New Orleans was in dire need of similar support, he said. He also spoke about the similarities in having private forces located in the area who were hired by the government to rebuild and secure each locale’s distraught environments. Specifically he was frustrated by Halliburton’s methods of using outsourced labor rather than paying locals to rebuild. The private military and Figure 2. On the Road Participants, Tennessee, USA, 2009. Photo by Jeremy Deller, taken March 13, 2009. Courtesy of Creative Time via Flickr. Sergeant Jonathan Harvey and Esam Pasha pictured seating on the far left with unidentified local Tennessee participants. http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativetime/3414342375/in/photostream/ (accessed December 30, 2010). 15 security contractor, Blackwater, was also mentioned as having provided security against looting and other crimes in both New Orleans and Baghdad. Upon hearing this Pasha expressed that the Iraqi experience was not that different from what Americans had faced. The edited video concludes with Pasha stating, “See - we’re not very different.” The secondary viewer was left to ponder the heavy implications of the mutual grievances felt by both parties with no real outlet for their own questions, comments or concerns. Documentation reveals how this secondary viewing experience was one sided, whereas the initial presentation was mutually reliant. While the two men in this video are shown agreeing and rhetorically reflecting on “why it happens this way,” one can ascertain that the project was often less about disseminating information as had Deller intended, and more about giving people the opportunity to share common experiences that they may not otherwise have the opportunity to express given the lack of interaction many Americans have with contemporary Iraqi citizens and/or recent veteran of the conflict. Most poignantly this site shows that the conversation may need to find future outlets in which to sustain the need or desire amongst the public to further address these issues in an unbiased and comfortable setting like Deller provided. At the project’s tenth road site on April 9, 2009, located at Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas, the crew recorded a number of videos that portrayed individuals with varying concerns and comments regarding the conflict. One of the more intriguing videos depicted an interview with a young woman in her mid 20s, caucasian and athletic, whose appearance did not reveal much at first about 16 her intimate involvement with Iraq. In the video she explained how her family had been involved with the oil business for generations and her aunts were related to Middle Eastern oilmen through marital partnerships. She also explained how the social climate in Houston was very welcoming of Muslims due to broader business partnerships and how a large settlement of Middle Easterners lived in the area. As the video concluded she confidently addressed the world’s unwavering thirst for oil and how Houston would always be safe from economic hardship because of its ties to the industry. Creative Time curator and trip coordinator, Nato Thompson, described this woman as representing a truly authentic Texas persona; 25 but it is reflections like this that are problematic to the work’s desire to be innovative in the face of stereotypical depictions of people and place. It Is What It Is purported to disseminate information about Iraq, but in certain circumstances such as the one depicted in this video, the viewer seems to be learning about what it means to be American. Juxtaposing these clips reveals the disparity of perspectives that the road crew encountered and brings up multiple concerns from a critical and theoretical perspective. First, do these distinctions perpetuate stereotypes and generalizations about place or do they create a cohesive picture of people in relation to shared experiences? Furthermore, does this diversity dispel notions about perspective and place or simply reinforce them? As a project that travelled across North America, this piece was ripe with potential to generate responses to questions like these and the answers could have contributed to the U.S.’s understanding of 25 Nato Thompson, interview by author, telephone Los Angeles to New York, January 5, 2011. 17 identity related to place. Unfortunately, it did not achieve this goal because it was first, focused on Iraq related content, and secondly, the maintenance of its overwhelmingly complex production apparatus consumed the majority of the crew’s time and resources. Furthermore, taking this work on the road translated it into a work of public art, a label that comes with certain obligations to the public. Regrettably there was only one documented instance from its public iteration that showed the crew verbally grappling with their audience’s relationship to this piece as a work of contemporary art. One would imagine that the diverse public, not being privy to methodological developments within art making such as social practice, would be interested in how Deller was using this artistic platform to address a challenging national issue. Considering that social practice is a fairly untraditional form of art within mainstream culture, Deller or Creative Time might have used this opportunity to educate their audience about art as well as Iraq. Instead they shied away from emphasizing the project’s relationship to art because it was a conversation that seemed dated to them, as they are seasoned in the trajectory of history and recent art practices. But many of the editorial reviews from the road suggest there was confusion on the part of the participants and bystanders as to how this project was functioning as a work of art. For example, was the car the art piece? Or were the conversations? Thompson claimed these attempts to nuance the work’s artistic qualities distracted people from the point of the project. Participating organizations also explained the art conversation did not seem relevant to the task at hand. As the show’s editorial 18 reviews revealed, people were curious and/or confused about the project’s identity as a work of art and it could have been more thoroughly addressed both to the participants and the road organizations. One has to wonder if it could have bolstered the public’s understanding of contemporary art had it been explained. Given Deller and his crew’s chosen parameters the secondary viewer is left with only snapshots of conversations and mere glimpses into the work’s identity as public art. The variety of chosen sites generated multifarious experiences. Surveying these conversations as a collective grouping of one overarching experience produces a fractured sense of the original encounter. There is a lack of cohesion to the videos as both the content and the circumstances were sporadic. Seeing that the piece’s platform was strictly conversational, the work only exists in the present by viewing this documentation. Ultimately, the way in which the video documentation is presented detracts from its initial purpose - which was to highlight Iraqi content. Granted it was inherently difficult to document this work so that one could reiterate its profundity to secondary viewers. As Pasha stated in a recent interview about this issue, those who experienced the piece first hand often had “life changing experiences” while secondary viewers oftentimes do not connect with its initial authenticity. YouTube Videos A video posted on March 29, 2009 by the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington D.C. explained the overall premise and introduced guest experts 19 Pasha and Harvey at the first of their thirteen host locations. 26 Remarkably at the time of this research this video only had thirty-five views. One explanation for this is that only those videos shot by Creative Time were posted to the project’s official website, 27 while other videos are loosely presented on YouTube by a number of individuals and organizations. The expanse of videos posted on YouTube are not collectively organized under one heading; in order to see videos on the site relating to the project, one would have to search for them individually based on location or organization, or stumble upon them by chance. Creative Time’s website provides a platform for the videos and was the project’s main source of content dissemination after the museum exhibitions closed and before the book, It Is What It Is, was published by Deller and Creative Time in 2011. All Internet video’s about the project, both at the Creative Time website and on YouTube, are currently presented separately which poses a problem for the secondary viewer. Another link posted on May 8 th 2009 by an unknown art enthusiast provides a visual tour of the Hammer’s courtyard exhibition display. It also includes a brief interview with Hammer Curatorial Assistant, Elizabeth Cline who explains the project’s premise and Deller’s use of the bombed car as a 26 Institute of Policy Studies, “Conversations About Iraq in DC: Part 2” InstofPolicyStudies, YouTube Website, May 19, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNqDXBFFovE. (accessed February 28, 2011). 27 Creative Time, “It Is What It Is: Featured Links,” http://conversationsaboutiraq.org/ (accessed December 18, 2010). 20 conversational anchor. 28 The video, which has one hundred and twelve views, interviews both a Los Angeles based guest expert and a museum visitor; they both speak about their experiences and describe the work as a piece of conceptual art. Describing the piece as a work of conceptual art is accurate; ironically the piece was rarely referred to as such by Deller or his curatorial staff. This is another instance in which one can see how the artist and his team chose to distance themselves from defining the work in concrete art historical terminology. The last link of significance shows the final site of visitation for the bombed car, used as the project’s key conversation piece both on the road and at the three museum sites. The video offers secondary viewers a look into the London Imperial War Museum’s main gallery at the car’s permanent setting with other machines and crafts of war. 29 Deller briefly speaks to the camera explaining how this is the ideal ending place for the object as it is not an art gallery and the car is not an art object. He indicates that this distinction will permanently clarify any misconception that the car could be seen as such, considering his and others previous use of it within the field of art and culture. The Institutional Apparatus “In 2004, the Three M Project was conceived and developed” so that “three museums could share and collaboratively produce ambitious projects on a 28 Nadine, S. “Talking about Iraq” (May 8, 2009) YouTube Web site, Streamable video file, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op9xUGLXiEI&feature=related. (accessed February 28, 2011). 29 News Net London, “Bombed Baghdad Car on Display at London's Imperial War Museum,” (September 9, 2010) YouTube Web site, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXgI_S3tpI (accessed February 28, 2011). 21 national scale” through “efficiency, knowledge, and resource sharing.” 30 In 2009 the partnership was “in its second cycle” and involved “four new commissions by Jeremy Deller, Daria Martin, Mathias Poledna, and Urban China.” These projects were “presented simultaneously” in a group show format. 31 While Deller’s piece is sometimes presented as an isolated event or solo exhibition, it is more historically accurate to contextualize it in regards to its group show status. As one element of a four-part exhibition, it shared resources with the other artists at all three sites. Each institution under the Three M apparatus— the New Museum, Hammer, Contemporary Art Chicago and Creative Time – were given the autonomy to facilitate and produce their own iteration of the group exhibition. In Deller’s case, each museum presented It Is What It Is in similar yet distinct ways. The staff of every museum was charged with locating experts within their local communities for the conversations that would come to compose the majority of Deller’s content. The artist described this as an intentional way to motivate museum staff to reach out to their communities and better familiarize themselves with the surrounding Iraqi community. In the Hammer’s case an independent contractor was hired and sourced the experts for the museum. Understandably, resources were not available for the Hammer to attempt this feat on its own; but this administrative adjustment to the artist’s intentions did undercut Deller’s goal of the museum getting to know its Iraqi constituents. While his intention was 30 The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. http://www.mcachicago.org/ (accessed November 29, 2010). 31 Ibid. 22 educate the museum staff about the community, just as the general purpose of the show was to familiarize the public about contemporary Iraq, the investigation’s mediation was a disservice to the museum staff’s broader experience of the piece. Hammer and Museum of Contemporary Art In April 2009 the Hammer presented the project in the open- air courtyard. Due to scheduling issues there was no exhibition space available, so the piece was presented outside. Ironically the building that overlooked the courtyard was owned and operated by Occidental Petroleum Corporation, “an international oil and gas exploration and production company and major North American chemical manufacturer.” 32 According to Hammer staff, there were a number of complaints made by OXY employees who could view the project from their office windows 32 Occidental Petroleum Corporation, http://www.oxy.com/About_Oxy/Pages/default.aspx, (accessed February 28, 2011). Figure 3. Installation view, Hammer Museum. It is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, April 21 – May 17, 2009, is part of the Three M Project—a series by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, to commission, organize, and co-present new works of art. Deutsche Bank sponsors the Three M Project. Photo by Josh White. Figure 4. Installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Jeremy Deller: It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009. Photography © Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Photographer, Analu Maria Lopez. 23 but these complaints were not enough to threaten the exhibition’s scheduled duration. The Hammer was the second to last museum presentation. It hosted the work just one day after the road crew arrived in Los Angeles. In an artist talk held on the opening day, the crew was seemingly exhausted but appeared tight knit and eager to share with Los Angeles the personalities and stories they had encountered across the U.S. At the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in October of 2009, the project was presented in its final institutional format. Similar to its success at the New Museum, the MCA staff said the piece was very successful and garnered a lot of foot traffic. It Is What It Is Text In the spring of 2011 Deller released the text about the project with the Figure 5. It Is What It Is book cover, 2011. Courtesy of the Creative Time, Creative Time Books. http://www.creativetime.org/books (accessed on February 20, 2011). 24 support of Creative Time. It used photo documentation from the road tour, representing the journey in a diary like format that was similar to the way in which it was previously presented by the website. It also included essays from the website, like Nato Thompson’s Road Diary which provided an honest portrayal of the crew’s day-to-day findings. According to Creative Time the book did not have a distinct distribution strategy other than being offered to the thirteen partnering organizations and three museum sites. To further achieve its overall objective, which was to disseminate information and uncommon perspectives about Iraq, Deller and Creative Time might consider distributing copies to libraries in the U.S. and internationally, or providing a print-on-demand feature online. If it was truly the goal of this project to reach people and change opinions about Iraq then the book will be one of the work’s best assets, as the content is laid out in a cohesive format. The issue with the project’s presentation on the Internet is that many videos and lectures remain scattered on various websites. While the book attempts to contextualize the experience of the work through photographs and essays, it is also just a snapshot of the visceral nature of these exchanges. Despite this fact, it is one of the project’s major achievements in sustaining and promoting its original mission. 25 CHAPTER TWO: EARLY YEARS OF SOCIAL PRACTICE The best way to describe social practice is that it is occurring in the present day. As a discipline it utilizes participation, exchange, and interaction and because of its relative newness [it] is still forming its traditional practices, however it generally includes some type of social outreach beyond traditional methods employed in galleries and museums. 33 -Vanessa Robetson-Rojas Figure thirty-two was composed by a group of graduate students in 2010 in one of the U.S.’s newly developed social practice master programs. The diagram visualizes the complex, interwoven nature of social practice’s many 33 April 6, 2010, http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com/page/5 (accessed February 16, 2011). Figure 6. Social Practice Diagram, 2010. Dustin. “Conceptual Map,” Portland State University’s social practice graduate student blog, Art as Social Practice. (December 1, 2010). http://art-socialpractice.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Conceptual_map (accessed February 16, 2011). 26 influences. Like Rojas, a student of the graduate program articulated in the opening quotation, the genre continues to evolve but is rooted in the key characteristics of social interaction and outreach. For the past half century this focus has changed the way cultural practitioners teach, learn, experience and produce art in the United States. Significant signs of social practice’s contemporary impact are visible in the proliferation of graduate programs specifically focused on social outreach as subject. Additionally, shifts in museum practice, such as the Hammer Museum’s social practice artist-in- residency program is yet another example of the institutional shifts that have resulted from its emphasis and use by cultural practitioners. 34 According to Deller, the United Kingdom has practiced this type of work for decades whereas U.S. institutions just began promoting it. As a result, Deller often found himself explaining his conceptual strategies to both the museum staff and audience, even though his tactics echoed those of social practice work in the U.K. The presentation of It Is What It Is in the U.S. presented three prominent contemporary art museums with an opportunity to publicly “cut their teeth” on the 34 Further information about the Hammer’s program was articulated in a panel discussion by Elizabeth Cline of the Public Engagement Department at the Hammer Museum who explained how the Hammer fully “supports social practice.” The following text reviewed her contributions. “The Hammer welcomes social practice artist-in-residence to point out the downfalls of the institution and propose creative solutions. Process is made transparent as problem solving occurs in public. This residency works well with The Hammer’s goal to amplify the museum as a civic space and shift expectations of what happens at a museum. In addition, an artist council oversees the activities of the museum and its relationship to the larger community, the councilors are endearingly nicknamed the innies and outies. I look forward to seeing how The Hammer’s open- minded and invested approach to social practice develops, it seems like they are off to a good start and may set the tone for how institutions nationally deal with social practice artists.” Hammer Museum, “Shotgun Review: The Role of the Art Institution in Community Engagement” (May 26, 2010). http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com/post/633884270/shotgun-review-the-role- of-the-art-institution-in (accessed February 16, 2011). 27 social practice genre, a popular new way of art making that enforced their promotion of collaborative creation, openness and trust. It was both good for their image as national promoters of culture and allowed them to become better acquainted with a number of the medium’s key strategies and tactics. Life altering U.S. events like September 11 th , 2001 and the wars that followed in the Middle East, called both individuals and institutions to reevaluate the way art and culture was being produced and cultivated. It also highlighted a collective desire to put critical pressure on addressing macro issues like the faltering economic system and related political maneuvers. Deller’s piece came at precisely the right time. Its theme satisfied a need for addressing the realities the U.S. was facing, and its approach satisfied a need for U.S. citizens to come together to talk, grieve, mourn and strategize. Using social practice as an evaluative tool for the theorization of It Is What It Is presents a certain self-reflexivity that is immensely significant to a critique of a systems heavy piece. Vice versa, It Is What It Is allows for the inverse examination of social practice, the particularities of its historical development and its contemporary application. An examination of recent art historical progress within this genre contextualized Deller’s strategies and tactics, i.e. collaboration, community engagement, dialogue and interaction. These elements were specifically applicable to both his strategies and tactics and revealed how they were mutually systems derived, dependent and determined. The presentation of the following theories and theorists span from the early nineteen-nineties to the early 2000s; their voices are regarded by many as those 28 leading the contemporary discussion about what is significant within social practice in the U.S. In 1992, artist Suzi Gablik authored a number of texts relating to art’s applicability within contemporary society. In her article Connective Aesthetics, she explained how “Modernism carried people away from a sense of community by focusing only on the individual experience.” In contrast to Modernism, art practitioners of the 1990s were “orientated toward the achievement of shared understandings and the essential intertwining of self and other, self and society.” 35 The adoption of a “connective aesthetic” she said would encourage others to “recognize that they [were living] in a time in which the need for community had become critical.” 36 Gablik’s urgent calls for the collective restructuring of society were echoed by broader national desires. The 1990s culture wars defined the era as the contemporary decade to publicly and collectively call for shifts in the cultural and societal norms within popular mainstream channels. A society that once felt polarized by different lifestyle choices, ethical backgrounds and moral values was then attempting to address and embrace difference. From Gablik’s historical positioning in 1992, she claimed to have witnessed the “yearning for a sense of community” that had been ignored during Modernism. 37 From her perspective people were living with the “world view” that “the self was no longer isolated and self-contained, but relational and 35 Gablik, Suzi. “Connective Aesthetics”. American Art 6.2 (1992):2-7. JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian Art Museum. Web. 26 Mar. 2010. 36 Ibid., 6. 37 Ibid., 2. 29 interdependent.” 38 The notion of a relational interdependence remained key in future iterations of social practice. Many artists throughout the medium’s evolution expanded “the number of voices” and diversity of those they chose to highlight. This gave “groups that [had] been previously excluded” the opportunity to speak about their “own experience,” 39 rather than having someone else dictate it for them. Gablik’s words hinted at improving human rights and social justice while not being overbearing. Her prediction for future decades was that the creative field would “see more art that [was] essentially social” and indeed the U.S. has witnessed that evolution. 40 In 1994 Suzanne Lacy published Mapping the Terrain in which she articulated a new public art developing at the time but which had yet to be critically or academically fortified. In response she coined the term “new genre public art,” the basis of which was community engagement, with an added emphasis on artistic intention and responsibility. The method made use of “both traditional and nontraditional media” and related to its audience through issues that were “directly relevant to their lives.” This methodology was echoed in the strategies and tactics Deller made use of in It Is What It Is. For example, while the piece only briefly engaged with communities and in this limited durational manner, it did however use old and new media to communicate with a broader public, using content that was directly relevant to their lives as U.S. citizens in 2009. 38 Ibid., 3. 39 Ibid., 4. 40 Ibid., 7. 30 In 1996 Mary Jane Jacob expanded upon Lacy’s sentiments about community engagement with her curatorial work in Chicago entitled Culture in Action. The project “was developed over long periods of discussion beginning in 1990 among arts professionals, community organizers and neighborhood groups.” Through this collaboratively heavy model the project “sought to give new meaning to public art.” Jacob believed these interactions had the potential to “build a new model for public art;” 41 one that broadly involved many constituents within the community’s cultural sphere. Despite public art not yet being able to outgrow its 1960s association with large abstract sculptures in corporate plazas into the early 2000s, Jacob’s work accelerated the conversation regarding the public vision of public art. She also foresaw the possibility for a social turn in museum practice. Her work asked the art and cultural community to be self-reflexive about the reciprocal relationship between art and institution, in order to see what both could learn from each other. “Art outside the institutional framework raised questions that, in turn, lead to parallel reflections about art inside museums: who is the public for art? How does art address various publics? What is the role of the artist today? Can art contribute to society? What is the place of our art institutions in the broader realm of culture?” 42 The contemporary relevance of these dynamic questions historically and contemporaneously remained pertinent. These concerns imbibed Deller’s piece with historical significance, It Is What It Is furthered Jacob’s line of questioning 41 Ibid., 59. 42 “Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago,” Sculpture Chicago (exh. cat. Bay Press, Seattle, 1995) [essay “Outside the Loop” 1993,] 51. 31 within the contemporary moment because it raised questions about art’s usefulness in society as a tool for public interaction. Jacob’s work placed a new emphasis on working outside of the museum at a historical moment when broader social and cultural movements were drawing attention to perceived apparatuses of restriction within American society. Amongst other issues, the culture wars of the 1980s brought questions to the forefront that served to challenge the museum’s “accountability and responsibility to audience.” They were facing new “demands from local communities and funding agencies,” who wanted them “to be audience- responsive, to heighten accessibility, and provide didactic materials and educational programming.” Ultimately they were called to expand their role beyond the antiquated notion of the museum as “keeper and exhibitor of culture.” 43 Jacob’s work furthered pursued the achievement of these initiatives. By putting greater pressure on our collective understanding of where and how art and culture are produced, she was able to call historic cultural power structures into question so that future practitioners could redevelop the model to include more perspectives. With Deller’s piece museums were eager to get involved with a project whose medium moved them beyond the normative role and practices of traditional museums. Shrinking attendance in contemporary decades caused museums to reevaluate their strategies, to engage with works that connect with a broader public who were previously not addressed or included in contemporary 43 Ibid. 32 art discussions. Jacob’s qualms with the status quo were evident in her direct confrontation of exclusionary museum practices which, simply by their hierarchical nature, discouraged a more diverse audience from seeking out the museum’s content. In her words, “the art museum may not be the most appropriate starting point for certain audiences to become involved with contemporary art as it may never be the venue that some frequent.” While her position was advocating for a cross pollination between what could be found in public and in public and in institutions, this statement also set the tone for contemporary renewal of this system. As Jacob said further, “just because an individual does not visit museums does not mean that he or she has neither the interest nor the capacity to relate to what contemporary art has to offer.” 44 The new developments within social practice based graduate programs and shifts in museum programming and practices can only serve to foster greater accessibility for art for those not previously able or interested in engaging with the museums. Articulating socially based art as a contemporary art form to the more general populous, opened up the possibility for a broader enhancement of what an entire culture could believe the creative field could contribute and subsequently what value art could have within society. It Is What It Is served a historical need to transform normative systems of presentation and outreach by taking its content on the road to address a wider audience. Reaching out to smaller institutions and organizations that had a more diversified public than the three major museums, it inherently asked for new 44 Ibid., 52. 33 thoughts and theories to arise in regards to art’s presentation within a public sphere. In the 1990s Jacob’s work in the public sphere found that “educational or evaluative tools were not regularly employed” in that arena and little had been established as to how a project could successfully reach its audience. Although in different ways Jacob and Deller explored territory that thematically challenged the audience’s sense of collective identity in regards to place. By confronting essentialist notions that people’s beliefs can be generally categorized by geographic place or region, he articulated that there was a mixture of belief systems in every place. The U.S. public is a diverse but united group and it requires finesse to work in an environment unlike the museum whose audiences historically have shared common economic standing and societal views. The public sites are much more complicated due to the convergence of divergent beliefs. Both Jacob and Deller’s projects were not exclusively focused on “educating their audience about art,” but rather about “establishing a dialogue.” 45 Inadvertently or not they represent the shift in the public art agenda of the 1990s that regarded its purpose as improving society. They work demanded a renewed sense of what the dynamics within the public sphere could produce and the positive ways in which cultural practitioners could tap into the public in more generative ways. The truly dynamic contribution this project made within the theorization and historical lineage of contemporary public art was that it sought to challenge 45 Ibid., 58. 34 art’s normative condition within society and the public sphere. This shift was motivated by the fact that art had to permeate society’s “social systems” outside of the museum. 46 Their work strove to prove that “the social function of art” was a “creative problem-solving mechanism with applicability to all walks of life;” a notion that if realized could establish art’s role in society more concretely. 47 There was much more to be gained outside the museum because it presented a larger public to address. Most significantly Jacob’s work found that an alternative “definition of art” was not as necessary “as an expanded definition of the work of the artist.” 48 Redefining the artist’s role by “working with communities” was an “important step in demarginalizing contemporary art and artists, building new bonds with the public and establishing a valued place for art in our society.” 49 For Deller the investigation of community was less of a focal point than a general awareness of an evolved and expanded sense of the artist’s role. His pronounced role as facilitator and the work’s collaborative construction revealed his desire to distance himself from the role of the artist as sole author. This distance allowed him to witness the organic evolution of the work’s engagement with its public and for the work to be more about those involved than his agenda within its construction. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 60. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 60. 35 In 1997 Lucy Lippard published The Lure of the Local which presented artistic models that Lippard felt “strengthened the bond between art, audience, and context.” 50 It was Lippard’s attempt at integrating “visual art and her experience living in various landscapes” into broader discussions about place that she felt could impact the study of art’s relationship to cultural geography. Within her historical positioning she felt a responsibility to study “the notion of the local.” 51 She strongly believed that the “landscape [could] reveal clues to a culture,” 52 and it was through an investigation and dedication to this landscape that she thought artists could do their best work. Deller’s piece embarked across North American with the hope of presenting a type of hidden history to a land the Lippard stated historically forgot its “past in favor of [its] future.” 53 The timing of the work’s presentation – eight years after the war’s inception – allowed Deller and his collaborators to address the U.S. consciousness at precisely the right moment within the decade’s tumultuousness. The work reached out to the public long enough after the outset of the war to bypass anger and resentment, yet could also tap into it while the conflict remained fresh. The landscape Deller encountered reveal that there was both a need and desire within the populous to connect with the subject. 50 Ibid., 20. 51 Lippard, Lucy R. The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. (New York: New Press, 1997), 7. 52 Ibid., 9. 53 Ibid., 13. 36 That the work was neither pro- nor anti-war made it accessible to most viewers, not simply those on one side of the political front or the other. Like the artists that Lippard’s text highlighted, Deller’s piece moves “beyond the reflective function of conventional art forms and the reactive function of activist art.” 54 Defining the piece as “post activist,” Deller sought to move beyond the confines of historical formulations of “political art” by avoiding a direct stance on either side’s agenda. By remaining neutral and distancing himself from the normative presentation of the work as art, specifically to those on the road, he also was able to make his project about the information rather than the issues inherent in the art’s historical, political art discourse. Deller made use of the public domain in ways that worked “against the dominant culture and reinstated the mythical and cultural dimensions of public experience.” 55 He worked against mainstream information dissemination by hiring local Iraqi experts with long standing experience within the contemporary culture. Their narratives resisted the mainstream media’s normative narrative and tactics of either ignoring or dismissing Iraqi culture. In this regard, Deller was a visionary who provided a way for U.S. citizens to “work against the dominant culture” and reestablish public knowledge across the U.S. Lippard’s stance, much like Suzanne Lacy’s was to support the work of artists who tried to sustain an impact in their communities by teaching locally based artists the information and skills necessary to pass down the project’s 54 Ibid., 18-19. 55 Ibid., 19. 37 overarching vision. Deller’s piece was not constructed in this way and did not conceptually identify with this course of action. It is unclear how a work dealing with such a current issue like the political and military conflict in Iraq could sustain itself in a fixed sense and if teaching locals to continue it would have benefited either the topic or the local need to address the issue. Lippard’s criticism of the historical limitations of U.S. public art provided clues as to how one could address Deller’s apparent lack of sustainability. She explained how Britain had historically “taken the lead” within public arts development by “appointing town artists as liaisons within communities;” it has been an “effective mode” for them but has never “caught on in the US.” 56 Deller was fully aware of this disparity as he often felt he had to explain his technique and approach to those in and outside of the art world. Notions of socially based art have been prominent in Europe since the early 1990s but as Deller pointed out it only recently began to catch on in America. 57 In this way his piece contributed in a broadly sustainable way in that its tactics and techniques promoted the social practice genre to a broader public. Before social practice developed in the U.S. its ideas were being applied in Europe. The most prominent example was the debut of the relational aesthetics theory and practice. Coined by French art critic, curator and philosopher Nicolas Bourriaud in 1996, the term refers to “art produced by a generation of prominent 56 Ibid., 20. 57 Jeremy Deller, interview by author, telephone from Los Angeles to London, February 4, 2011. 38 European artists from the early 1990s,” 58 who captured a moment in artistic production in which art was “grounded in the whole of human relations and their social context.” 59 Bourriaud coined the term in response to a theoretical exhibition he curated entitled Traffic, 60 that he felt displayed “evidences” of a new type of art making. 61 A later book by the same name was meant to further these ideas into the academic and art historical terrain but the ideas took years to catch on in the U.S. 62 In a 2009 Frieze interview Bourriaud explained how “the book’s ideas were disseminated by art students and artists” but were initially ignored. That recieved few reviews in art magazines and ultimately took ten years for a wide array of people to fully address it. 63 The text proved significant to the social practice movement because it reflected changes in the role of the artist. In relational art, the artist is no longer at the center. They are no longer the soul creator, the master or even celebrity. The artist, instead, is the catalyst. They kick-start a question, frame a point of consideration, or highlight an everyday moment. And then, they wait. They wait for a response from the random stranger, the passerby, the usual suspect—you 58 Wikipedia, “Nicolas Bourriaud,” (October 31, 2010) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourriaud (accessed February 17, 2011). 59 Ayres, Nik. “Relational Aesthetics” <http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com/page/6> February 16, 2011. Quoting Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, 1998. 60 Ibid. 61 Morton, Tom. “Tate Triennial 2009,” Frieze Magazine. Issue 120, Jan-Feb 2009 http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/tate_triennial_2009/ (accessed February 17, 2011). 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 39 and me. We are the missing piece and until we react, respond or relate, the ‘art’ lies in wait to say: “Happy to meet you. I’ve been waiting for you.” 64 From a documentation standpoint, the way in which relational aesthetic work was recorded and disseminated shifted as well considering most were ephemeral in nature. “These practices sometimes exist[ed] in isolated events” and were “documented simply with photographs” which “often included viewers as participants in the making of the art piece.” Deller’s piece could be described precisely like this based on his use of documentation and inclusion of the viewer into the artwork. Deller similarly created “communities - out of would-be bystanders,” 65 although they were small and ephemeral. By offering bystanders a chance to engage in a collectivizing experience he created cohesion within the intangible theoretical zone of conflicting beliefs and opinions about Iraq. Whatever “meaning one takes from [relational aesthetics] is up to each individual,” Bourriaud stated. Not all were captivated by the collectivizing experience of Deller’s dialogical platform. It is a subjective experience and one only takes away from it what they are willing to contribute. Deller found what Bourriaud had described, that his conversations were like an “improvised dance between two people.” 66 There was dependence inherent in the relationship and it took two committed individuals to generate something meaningful. Bourriad’s studies and Deller’s work emphasize how everyday interactions could become 64 The University of New Mexico has a program centered in relational art and gives this description of a new role for artists: Ayres, Nik. “Relational Aesthetics” http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com/page/6 (accessed February 16, 2011). 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 40 artwork, and how the traditional notion of artwork could be expanded to include “a record of life experience.” 67 Deller and his collaborators found their ability to produce a work was dependent on the participant’s willingness to engage with the content and their participation was often predicated on trust. Deller found success in his approach as it was an apolitical setting and therefore an ideologically open space for many viewpoints to enter. 67 Ibid. 41 CHAPTER THREE: LATER YEARS OF SOCIAL PRACTICE In the early 2000s, American artists involved in the public sphere were using social practice work from the 1990s to inform new theories about its evolution, ethics and possible future uses. In 2002 architect, artist, curator and academic, Miwon Kwon, published One Place After Another, which exhibited her critical interests in site-specific art. In this text Kwon argued that art historical discourses and institutions had uncritically adopted the site-specific turn in public art. Her text more broadly outlined the “genealogy of site specificity,” but most applicable to Deller’s piece was her point that the notion of a fixed site of production had transformed over the years “from a sedentary to a nomadic model.” The mobility of Deller’s work echoed this sentiment. As Kwon suggested many contemporary works were adopting lateral strategies and the nomadic model was beginning to signify site-specificity which had once been physically rooted was becoming “impermanent and transient.” 68 This “mobilization and commoditization of site specificity,” she said, had come to “represent its most salient critical moment,” as well as a “betrayal of its earlier aspirations.” 69 To support this claim she made multiple points of critique, the first of which used Mary Jane Jacob’s project Culture in Action as a critical case study. Kwon was weary that new genre public art was capable of exacerbating “uneven power relations” and re-marginalizing “already 68 Ibid., 4. 69 Ibid., 4. 42 disenfranchised groups.” 70 This was a key critique for Kwon as it pertained to ethical issues of uneven power relations in the triangulated exchange between the artist, curator, art institution, and community group.” 71 Much of this critique was a reflection of Kwon’s broader practice that has historically identified her as an alienated figure in control of her alienation. She believes that while one cannot remove the alienating factors of society, they can determine the way in which those powers are exerted. This portion of Kwon’s analysis concluded that different communities required different amounts of involvement and that the “inconsistencies and contradictions in the field” over this “public art trend,” had taken away from its ability to be self-reflexive and ethically sound. 72 Relating this to Deller, it is not easy to see how he or his road crew dealt with these questions and concerns about ethics and responsibility to one’s public. When asked about these more recent trajectories within social practice theory, Deller stated he was not fully aware of this history. Other critiques followed Kwon’s initial points and were related to the essentialist nature of the many methods and strategies outlined previously. “Without a doubt artists, curators, art institutions, and funding organizations think and act as if communities” are simply “awaiting outreach.” 73 Deller was eager to reach out and his partnering institutions supported him in this endeavor. Despite Kwon’s claims, and as other theorists have documented, communities have 70 Ibid., 6. 71 Ibid., 7. 72 Ibid., 6. 73 Kwon, Miwon. “One Place After Another,” (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2002), 153. 43 benefited from this outreach but it was her point that cultural producers should not assume these communities want outside input as if they saw themselves as culturally inferior. Kwon’s book inspired an entire shift in the public art conversation that specifically addressed these and other ethical concerns. In 2004 British author, Claire Bishop published the essay Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics in response to the vast amount of critical attention Borriaud’s relational theories were receiving at that time. She felt it was no longer acceptable for the artist to simply engage with the idea of public, of community and exchange. The innovative artist, she claimed, would have to find pugnacious ways of presenting a theme, making the work more aesthetic and engaging. Within this challenge she sought to address how relational aesthetics and similar offshoots were relating to the viewer. The tasks facing us today are to analyze how contemporary art addresses the viewer and to access the quality of the audience relations it produces: the subject position that any work presupposes and the democratic notions it upholds, and how these are manifested in our experience of the world. 74 Bishop emphasized a need for better understanding how this artistic practice was functioning, both as a work of art and as an interaction with the viewer. Inherent in both were historic struggles over the issues such as aesthetics and ethics. Both Bishop and author, Grant Kester, would go back and forth over the issues for the next couple of years offering different perspectives specifically on the ethics of social practices. 74 Ibid., 78 44 In 2004, writer and academic Grant Kester published Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, which sought to better formulate criteria for the evaluation of what he called “dialogical practice.” Dialogical art signifies a particular art making practice, emphasizing community involvement and collaboration. In many cases dialogical or community-based art is interested in social change and involves some empowerment of the community members who come together to create artwork/s with the artists. 75 While conversational strategies and community based practices had been in wide use for decades, Kester’s wanted to redefine these practices with a results driven ethos. He felt this would in effect provide a clearer argument for art’s ability to “build new bonds with the public and establish a valued place for art in society.” 76 Interestingly, Conversation Pieces opened by contextualizing the social and political moment that motivated its composition: the psychological state of United States’ citizenry post September 11 th . In this fraught historical moment the situation of art may seem a relatively minor concern. There are, however, a number of contemporary artists and art collectives that have defined their practice around the facilitation of dialogue among diverse communities. Parting from the traditions of object making, these artists have adopted a performative, process-based approach. They are “context providers,” rather than “content providers,” [serving a public] well beyond the institutional confines of the gallery or museum. 77 Kester’s overall “goal was to understand dialogical work as a specific form of art practice with its own characteristics and effects, related to but also different from 75 Penoncello, Nicole. “Dialogical Art,” http://historyofartandsocialpractice.tumblr.com/page/6 (accessed February 16, 2011). 76 Kester, Grant. “Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art,” (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2004), 12. 77 Ibid., 1. 45 activism.” He hoped to “develop criteria for evaluation” that would be “relevant and appropriate” for dialogically specific work, but found there was a “lack of resources in modern art theory for engaging with projects that were collaborative, rather than specular.” 78 As collaboration was the cornerstone tool of conversational exchange and social practice, Kester strove to formulate a criteria based on art historical moments significant to those types of work. The historical timeline he highlighted included an address of avant-garde practices, as well as the conceptual and minimalists art of the 1960s and 1970s. The most important of these being “the art of the 60s and 70s,” that focused on “shifts away from object-based practices,” towards work “dependent on direct physical and perceptual interaction with the viewer.” 79 Yet as he points out “critics and historians have found it particularly difficult to appreciate the experiences in those works that are not reducible to the visual.” 80 While Deller’s piece was vastly significant for those who experienced it first hand, the secondary experience is a fragmented one. As a non-visual piece, it is up to the truly investigative secondary viewer to put the pieces of those initial experiences together in order to generate their own authentic relationship with the material. In a 2006 article, Bishop again raised relevant concerns regarding the development of social practice. Her article The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents used the historical backing of Jacques Ranciere, to claim that socially engaged art was sacrificing a critical examination of aesthetics by 78 Ibid., 14. 79 Ibid., 16. 80 Ibid., 12. 46 emphasizing artistic intention and moral/ethical collaborative outcomes. "While I am broadly sympathetic to strengthening the social bond, I would argue that it is also crucial to discuss, analyze, and compare such work critically as art.” 81 She felt the collaborative work of the last ten years lacked the potential to be extensively generative because of its overt emphasis on ethical process. While she reduced ethical collaboration to “well-intention homilies,” she admitted they were valuable “for [their] truthfulness and educational efficacy.” 82 The truth is that “the social turn in contemporary art prompted an ethical turn in criticism;” because of this, “artists [were] increasingly judged by the degree to which they [supplied] good or bad models of collaboration and criticized for any hint of exploitation, in which they [supposedly failed] to “fully” represent their subject.” 83 Bishop addressed this point again in her conclusion, claiming that relational artists needed to invite their audiences “to confront darker, more painfully complicated considerations of our [collective] predicament.” This belief was grounded in Ranciere’s theories and supported the many artists she cited as being exemplary of her “alternative” collaboration model. The article specifically cited Deller as an artist not afraid to embrace something other than the normative collaborative path. In her opinion, “the best collaborative practices of the past ten 81 Bishop, Claire. 2006. "The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents." Artforum International. 44, no. 6: 178. 82 Ibid., 11. 83 Ibid., 3. 47 years” addressed “the contradictory pull between autonomy and social intervention.” 84 Bishop was compelled to write the essay because of recent events in Britain, where “New Labour used rhetoric almost identical to that of socially engaged art to steer culture toward policies of social inclusion.” She was concerned actions like these were reducing “art to statistical information concerning target audiences and “performance indicators,” which the government then used to prioritize social effects over considerations of artistic quality.” 85 Her article also significantly drew attention to the fact that social practices had taken on a multitude of labels with only slightly different definitions. Whether called: “socially engaged art, community-based art, experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, participatory, interventionist, research-based or collaborative art,” 86 they all shared a common emphasis on the empowerment of “creative, collective action and shared ideas.” 87 Both Kester and Bishop pointed out the need for better criteria of evaluation, but their discussions in recent years were caught up in two opposing arguments. Bishop agreed, “the emergence of criteria by which to judge social practices” was complicated by the present-day standoff between “nonbelievers,” who rejected the “work as 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid., 2. 86 Roche, Jennifer. “Socially Engaged Art, Critics and Discontents: An Interview with Claire Bishop,” Community Arts Network, July 25, 2006. http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/07/socially_engage.php (accessed January 10, 2011). 87 Ibid., 2. 48 marginal, misguided and lacking artistic interest,” and the “believers,” who rejected “the aesthetic question as synonyms with cultural hierarchy and the market.” 88 A discussion of these theories provides the best possible understanding of what Deller’s practice could mean within the recent historical trajectory of socially engaged art practice. The presentation of Deller’s piece within the context of these theoretical ideas reveals a critical framework from which it is possible to assess the contribution of It Is What It Is not only within social practice, but more broadly art’s capacity within the public sphere to engage with the viewer and contribute to social and cultural issues. 88 Ibid., 2. 49 CONCLUSION: IT WAS WHAT IT WAS Deller’s project was a response to the Iraq conflict even though it did not struggle with many of the stated pitfalls that the October Questionnaire highlighted regarding the difficulties of producing conflict related material in the U.S. over the past decade. The main aspects of the project: its mobility, temporality, “post activist” positioning and use of an institutional apparatus articulated best the risks and rewards associated with its production. While there have been numerous mobile projects in recent years that have sought to reach a broader public by taking their content on the road, Deller’s was truly unique in that it associated itself with a fraught political issue. Other mobile projects have sought to similarly visit locations regarded as being outside the dominant channels of cultural production. In an effort to counteract the uneven distribution of cultural dissemination in the United States many of these projects Figure 7. The Road Trip RV and destroyed car, 2009. Jersey City, NJ. Photo courtesy of Creative Time. 50 became mobile in order to reach a marginalized public. One such example was Edgar Endress’ Floating Museum from 2007. Concerning the use of public space as platform, Endress stated that the cultural practitioner’s use of public space “speaks to the crisis of the cultural institutions in that they don’t provide a platform for the people in the periphery.” 89 The mobile iteration of It Is What It Is simply sought to take its material across the U.S. in an effort to reach more people. There was no overarching concern with the demographic of this public other than who specifically wanted to reach a diverse array of sites and audiences. Endress also explained how his use of the public space of Washington, D.C. was mediated yet he lacked access to the commuter who was “disassociated from public space. All the public space [had] been removed from them” so they stopped participating, 90 he said. This is ultimately why he took his work to the commuter. This antidote is reminiscent of Deller’s motivation for using the demolished car. He stated numerous times that America’s attachment to the car as a symbol of national identity made it an ideal object for engaging the viewer. Secondly, Endress’ comments are comparable with October Questionnaire’s reference to how those living in the U.S. stopped making work about the conflict because the Patriot Act had literally and symbolically blocked their ability to make use of the public sphere. This disassociation from the right to engage, dissuaded artists from participating in the public sphere by making 89 Watts, Victoria, and Robert W. Gehl. The Politics of Cultural Programming in Public Spaces. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010., 160. 90 Ibid., 151. 51 work about public sphere issues. In order to engage with contemporary debates like the war in Iraq, artists had to construct comfortable environments were visitors would feel their participation would be respected. While Deller’s project dealt with an overarching issue that was inherently political, the overt nature of the theme was softened by the project’s “post- activist” positioning. “It’s not the territory of art to provoke social change,” Endress stated in reference to his own work. It is the artist’s “territory to provoke thinking - it is the job of the people to create change.” 91 While Deller’s neutral and post-activist positioning was confusing for some visitors, he was otherwise successful in providing a comfortable platform in which any and all perspectives were welcome. He felt remaining neutral would allow for more open exchange. It was neither his desire nor his responsibility to have an anti-war stance, although some of his critics would have preferred it that way. The piece’s political ambiguity seemed to mislead some viewers, whose disagreements were documented. But as Deller reminds us, the U.S. is a country perhaps too well versed in taking sides and it would do us some good to evaluate the information at hand rather than the opposing arguments. When looking at Deller’s “post-activist” term within the art historical context of social practice- it directly references developments within this movement, but Deller has yet to stake a claim within this art historical territory. Most of the road site participants were unaware of post-activism’s evolution out 91 Ibid., 161. 52 previous theoretical ideals informing social practice and there are no records that indicate the art world/museum sites engaged in this discussion either. As a critical evaluator of this piece it is necessary to address the fact that those who interacted with it were not only its participants but its collaborators. As Endress explained about his own collaborative process, “we feed off of each other.” Where “one person has an idea, someone else helps that idea progress and what we end up is ten times better than what we started with.” 92 Deller’s piece would not exist without participation, interaction and exchange. The mobility of the work allowed him and his crew to work with a new set of individuals everyday. The road audience interacted with the piece quickly as it came and went in a matter of hours. For most, the exchange was a welcomed addition to the community and the project’s short duration was not an issue. For a select few participants the temporal exchange was more politically disenfranchising than motivating. Miwon Kwon has historically responded negatively to public art projects that parachute in and out of places. It is unclear whether or not this project or those who participated in it- would have benefited from a more extended exchange. Apart from the amount of time the piece spent at each road site the conversational nature of the piece made it both temporal and ephemeral. Documenting the conversations through photography and video was essential in making a record of the piece; Deller and Thompson were hesitant to over-document the conversation because of the pressure it would put on 92 Ibid., 158. 53 participant and perhaps limit what they would like to talk about. While the piece had a surprisingly vast amount of footage that explained what they did, much of it remains scattered across the Internet and in various private files across the U.S. Many of the physical road sites took their own photos and videos but there is yet to be a singular depository, either physical or electronic through which the public can access the piece in a thorough way. While Deller’s intention was not to over-document these in-the-moment experiences, as they were organic and authentic for those involved, one wonders how people will continue to access this piece literally and experientially. One is left to connect the dots of its documentation and form their own take on the work’s capacity to connect with people and disseminate information. In order to obtain what primary viewers described as a visceral and authentic experience, one must visit the many sites of production through which this piece was presented. It is an unreasonable expectation that future audience will go to such great lengths to fully know the piece. Mostly likely the work will continue to be taken at face value, from what can be easily accessed from the website, book, handful of videos and word of mouth reiterations. For a piece ripe with implications for the enhancement of social practice, it would do the art world a broader favor if Deller and his institutional partners would further facilitate its archiving and distribution. Deller stated many times that “one day there [would] be a museum dedicated to the conflict in Iraq” but until that time we had “to imagine what it 54 might contain.” 93 Deller’s triumph within this piece was offering the world fragments of content that could provide the foundation for something more permanent. Undoubtedly, there was and still is a need and a desire within the U.S. to establish a comfortable, safe place for the engagement of critical ideas about current events related to the Middle East. As normative media channels have proven not to be the arena in which this space could be provided, Deller used the art world to create room for the public to address this topic. The art world has historically provided a platform for individuals, scholars and artist to address topics outside of the artistic discipline, as it has not always been possible in disciplinary arenas like science or politics, because of their inherent structural confines. 94 The art and cultural arena has provided space for the experimentation of socially engaging methodologies. Deller is not the first, nor will he be the last to call attention to art’s capacity to effect change within the public sphere. While critics will more thoroughly decide over time how Deller’s piece will fit within the art historical trajectory of the early 2000s, the project unquestionably served the contemporary moment and will continue to serve future publics in promoting the artistic arena as a profoundly useful space in which social and societal issues can be addressed. This conclusion will certainly not satisfy some contemporary critics and cultural producers at the forefront of public art, social practice and art criticism. While some revel in art’s capacity to address 93 Conversations About Iraq, Creative Time, http://www.conversationsaboutiraq.org/story.php (accessed November 2010). 94 Vidokle, Anton. New York Conversations, e-flux films, 2010. 55 interdisciplinary societal issues, others have become disillusioned by their ability to talk so thoroughly yet with such little emphatic result within the broader societal sphere. This sentiment was stated best by conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, in Anton Vidokle’s 2010 experimental film New York Conversations, which gathered contemporary cultural producer’s reflections on art’s current capacity within present day conditions. A three-day exchange between artists, critics, curators and the public was distilled into a sixty-minute film that touched upon contemporary issues ranging from their concerns about “ immaterial labor, possibilities for non-alienated life and working conditions, the feasibility of artistic freedom,” and the possibility of “reclaiming dignity in a work of art criticism.” 95 This vastly significant video unveiled the concerns and conditions of those at the forefront of cultural production. Perhaps one of the most relevant statements made in relation to Deller’s piece was contributed by conceptual artist, Lawrence Weiner. He stated, “I don’t get these long conversations when we are actually supposed to be making art, trying to change things.” 96 His point was that art cannot be just talk, it has to function on multiple levels to have any chance of creating change. This falls in line with Weiner’s practice which has for years been largely conceptually text based. In relation to Deller’s piece, Weiner’s sentiment profoundly suggests that conversational art like It Is What It Is uniquely inhabits both convivial and aesthetic territory. As a conversationally composed artwork with apolitical aims, 95 e-flux, June 3, 2010. http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/8211. (accessed on February 2, 2011). 96 Ibid. 56 Deller’s project slipped in and out of social practice’s current canon of categorization. Artists and critics will continue to develop the arena of social practice. However the public has now become apart of the work and the conversation, and they will join artists, critics and curators in determining whether or not this type of artistic practice serves Art in its attempt to create change within society. 57 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bishop, Claire. 2006. Participation. London: Whitechapel. Bryan-Wilson, Julia. 2009. Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War era. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapman, Roger. Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2010. Deller, Jeremy, and Alan Kane. Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK. London: Book Works, 2005. Deller, Jeremy. It Is What It Is. New York: Creative Time Books, 2010. Foster, Hal. Discussions in Contemporary Culture. Seattle: Bay Press, 1987. Graves, James Bau. 2005. Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community, and the Public Purpose. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Group Material (Firm: New York, N.Y.), and Julie Ault. 2010. Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material. London: Four Corners Books. Jacob, Mary Jane, Michael Brenson, and Eva M. Olson. Culture in Action: A Public Art Program of Sculpture Chicago. Seattle: Bay Press, 1995. Jacob, Mary Jane, and Michael Brenson. Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1998. Johnstone, Stephen. The Everyday. London: Whitechapel, 2008. Kester, Grant H. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. An Ahmanson-Murphy fine arts book. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 58 Lacy, Suzanne. Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Seattle, Wash: Bay Press, 1995. Lippard, Lucy, “The Fall”, Ockman, Joan, and Salomon Frausto. Architourism: Authentic, Escapist, Exotic, Spectacular. Munich: Prestel, 2005. Lippard, Lucy R. 1997. The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. New York: New Press. New Museum. 2009. “New Commissions: Jeremy Deller: It is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq,” www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/408 (accessed on October 10, 2010). October 123, Winter 2008, pp 27-30. 2008 October Magazine, Ltd. And Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rigney, Ann, and Douwe Wessel Fokkema. Cultural Participation: Trends Since the Middle Ages. Utrecht publications in general and comparative literature, v. 31. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1993. Thompson, Nato, and Anne Pasternak. A Guide to Democracy in America. New York: Creative Time, 2008. Trend, David. Cultural Pedagogy: Art, Education, Politics. Critical studies in education and culture series. New York: Bergin & Garvey, 1992. Wallis, Brian. 1990. Democracy: a Project. Seattle: Bay Press. Walwin, Jeni. Searching for Art's New Publics. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2010. Watts, Victoria, and Robert W. Gehl. The Politics of Cultural Programming in Public Spaces. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010. Vidokle, Anton. New York Conversations, e-flux films, 2010.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
For little over a decade artistic practice in the United States has become intently “focused upon on the sphere of inter-human relations” (Nicolas Bourriaud). Contemporary theorists have presented a variety of ideas concerning the resurgence of this artistic tendency that emerged half a century ago. Using It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, which was presented across the U.S. and at three major museums in 2009 by British Turner prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, as case study to further delineate this artistic form of expression, this thesis addresses recent theoretical developments within the broader social practice movement. Deller’s project emphasized the complicated nature of these theories in action within the contemporary moment, and testified to its heightened use in the public sphere through shifts higher education and institutional programming. The evaluation of Deller’s piece emphasizes the art-historical importance of this work and more broadly contends with the contemporary conflict between those who debate art’s ability to transform consciousness within the public sphere.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Kopp, Rebecca Nichole
(author)
Core Title
Sites of production: An examination of Jeremy Deller's It is what it is: Conversations about Iraq
School
School of Fine Arts
Degree
Master of Public Art Studies
Degree Program
Public Art Studies
Publication Date
05/04/2011
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
dialogical practice,Iraq,Jeremy Deller,OAI-PMH Harvest,public art,public sphere,social practice
Place Name
Iraq
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USA
(countries)
Language
English
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Electronically uploaded by the author
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Advisor
Holte, Michael Ned (
committee chair
), Decter, Joshua (
committee member
), Jacob, Mary Jane (
committee member
)
Creator Email
rkopp@usc.edu,rnkopp@gmail.com
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https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3881
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UC1141769
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etd-Kopp-4545 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-469005 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3881 (legacy record id)
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etd-Kopp-4545.pdf
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469005
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Thesis
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Kopp, Rebecca Nichole
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texts
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University of Southern California
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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Libraries, University of Southern California
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Los Angeles, California
Repository Email
cisadmin@lib.usc.edu
Tags
dialogical practice
Jeremy Deller
public art
public sphere
social practice