2. From Self-Critique to Institutional Critique Frank Stella, More or Less , 1964 Daniel Buren, Peinture-Sculpture , 1971 Guggenheim Museum, NYC
3. Haacke, Shapolsky et al Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 Institutional Critique (1971)
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5. “ The Supreme Neutrality of Art”? Picasso, Glass and Bottle of Suze 1912 George Grosz, The Pillars of Society 1926 Mark Rothko, Untitled (Violet, Black, Orange Yellow on White and Red) , 1949
25. Postmodernism 101 - Appropriation Levine, Untitled (After Edward Weston I) 1980 Edward Weston, Neil , 1925 Torso of a Youth, Hellenistic or Roman Copy, 2nd-1st century BCE
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Editor's Notes
We’ve discussed at length the modernist desire to critique itself by stripping down the painting or sculpture to its basic forms, shapes, even to the extent that the painting almost no longer exists as a painting (a picture of a thing), but rather as an image-object in the way it reiterates its own form within the work itself (see Frank Stella’s work above). This kind of critical self-examination can also be dealt with in terms of context, but not in terms of site-specificity like in earthworks, rather in terms of the relationship between art and the institutions (museums/galleries) that collect and exhibit it. Some artists became interested in this phenomenon and its various socio-political implications, such as Daniel Buren who used modernist visual form (a black and white striped curtain) to bisect the museum’s interior space, much to the dismay of other exhibiting artists. The installation was subsequently removed.
Haacke’s work has a number of implications for the art world. It seems to want to collapse distinctions between class, to bring an audience, or that audience’s proxy, into a space where that audience (the poor) haven’t historically been represented, and to use an aesthetic strategy which traditionally hasn’t found favor with museum supporters (photoconceptualism).
Your book states that Haacke’s work lacks “any accusation or polemical tone”. Is this true? The director didn’t think so. His reasoning for asking for their removal was that he believed they violated the “supreme neutrality of the work of art and therefore no longer merits protection of the museum” (Messer). This brings up a number of questions: What is meant by “neutrality”? Is art neutral? Should it be? Should museums only support work which takes a “neutral” or apolitical stance? What Haacke seems to want to expose is the hidden ideologies and practices behind the aestheticization of art and its seemingly “neutral” function. He has long believed that the wealthy use these spaces to control public perception.
Lombardi’s self-named “narrative structures” are somewhat indebted to Haacke. However, he culled his info from newspaper articles. Before his death in 2000, his diagrams resulted from his interest in various S&L and energy scandals, the Iran-Contra affair, and even financial connections between George W. Bush and the bin Laden family.
