УДК 7

Exhibitions of spectacle and its critique

Маслова Екатерина Алексеевна – студентка магистратуры Национального исследовательского университета «Высшая школа экономики»

Abstract: The author of the article examines how attitudes towards exhibitions, exhibition spaces, and viewers have evolved. The problem that contemporary curators and galleries face is the viewer's passivity, which was criticised in the last decades of the twentieth century. The author uses the concepts of 'passive spectator' and 'active spectator' in this paper, arguing that despite cultural institutions' efforts to create a "active" spectator, such practises are ultimately unsuccessful. The author refers to such exhibitions as "performance exhibitions," emphasising that they do not elicit a response from the viewer, even if he or she interacts with art objects and art space. This article attempts to highlight current issues that are still relevant to cultural institutions. This paper is intended for cultural institution curators, artists, and researchers.

Keywords: exhibitions of spectacle, relational aesthetics, museums, contemporary art, curation.

Since the first half of the twentieth century, there has been criticism of the spectator as a passive participant in the perception of art, as well as of art institutions as isolated entities. In this article, I will discuss potential solutions to this problem as well as their implications. As a starting point, I chose the exhibition "Zya! Slava Polunin's Air Castles (Complete Adventures)," in which the viewer actively participated in the exhibition process, blurring the observer's boundaries. I coin the term "exhibitions of spectacle" to describe such exhibitions, in which I also embed some of my criticism of these exhibitions. Although participatory practises seek to liberate the viewer from alienation and passivity, 'exhibitions of spectacle' produce an effect of spectacle that has the opposite effect. The main problem of the paper is that while the intensional new practises of "exhibitions of spectacle" criticise the limitations of the art institution and create new agents of art, the spectator simultaneously loses his agency in the process of participation. In this way, 'exhibition-attractions' address the issue of institutional boundaries indirectly, but not completely. I will begin by reviewing theoretical work on art institution criticism before moving on to case study analysis and criticism.

A power relationship between the institution, the space, the artist, and the audience is embedded in the very phenomenon of the art institution. This delineation of participants is present in the concept of the 'institution,' as well as the creation of different roles within it that emphasise space hierarchy. This relationship is known as the dispositif of art, which Foucault defined as "strategies of power relations that both sustain and are sustained by various types of knowledge" [6, p. 241].  In the case of spectatorship, the institution of art completely controls it and dictates what and how it should be realised.

As a critique of this relationship, Bourriaud's theory of 'relational art' has been proposed. According to Bourriaud, the position of art begins to shift with the Enlightenment era, which was based on the emancipation of the individual and the people. Although art, particularly the avant-garde (from Dadaism to Situationism), continued to be overly rationalised even after this period, Bourriaud maintains that art cannot be reduced to complete rationalism, mechanism, or institutionalism, that is, to create art based on the historical past. The goal of art is to "create a better world" for man, which means that art should not be separated from man or from modernity [3, p. 35]. Burrio introduces the concept of "relational art" in this context, which he defines as art that involves the viewer's active participation in the perception and creation of meanings, rather than the artist's imposition of ideas.

Claire Bishop makes a similar critique of institutional art, arguing that participatory art overcomes viewer isolation and, more broadly, confronts consumerism, "totalitarian socialism," and military dictatorship [2, p. 275]. The need for participatory art stems from spectators' social inclusion and the formation of social bonds among them. The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord is an example of the result of a lack of participatory practises. However, Bishop (2012) believes that participatory art is no longer effective enough to address these issues. This is because it is no longer as closely linked to political processes as it was in the 1990s [2, p. 284]. Furthermore, participatory art is entwined with the entertainment system, which is inherently anti-political.

The exhibition "Zya! Castles in the Air of Slava Polunin (the Complete Collection of Adventures)" can be seen as an example of "amusement exhibitions" embedded in the context of institutional criticism in the 1990s and 2000s. The exhibition took place in Moscow's Central Manege from May 18 to July 3, 2022, with the support of the Moscow Department of Culture. It took up the entire upper floor of the Manege and was divided into "worlds," each of which featured a Polunin-staged performance. As a result, the viewer had to become acquainted with all the clown's creativity as they passed the tents along the chain. Clowns greeted the audience at the entrance and began playing with them before leading them to the first tent. Almost every tent had objects that could be picked up and manipulated. Furthermore, the entire exhibition space was covered in artificial grass and sand in some areas, allowing visitors to run and lie on the entire territory. Clowns present in the tents and interacting with the audience were active participants in the exhibition. The clowns were unique in that they did not speak to the audience, but instead actively demonstrated their desire/intention nonverbally; the visitor could converse with them both verbally and nonverbally.

Why can Slava Polunin's exhibition be interpreted as a critique of art institutions? First, the exhibition removes the barrier between the visitor and the exhibition object: the object becomes a literal part of the audience's game. Furthermore, visitors can participate in this game not only with those who accompany them, but also with other spectators, active agents, and clowns. As a result, social ties are formed among all of the exhibition's agents. Second, the exhibition goes against what is known as "body politics" in cultural history, which is the management of people through their movement in space. The exhibition space was organised in such a way that, on the one hand, you were offered to move from one tent to another, but there were open areas between them where you could defy this logic of transition and move to the opposite tent or stay in an open area. The logic of movements and criticism of exhibition structures can be traced through such spatial organisation. Nonetheless, the exhibition's curators did not fully address the issues raised by institutional criticism. Clowns, for example, served multiple functions at once: as exhibition elements, active agents, and "guards" of the exhibition. Although the clowns did not directly forbid anything, they could offer or direct the viewer to do something. Thus, there was still an element of supervision, albeit an implicit one, at the exhibition.

Despite undermining some aspects of cultural institutions, this exhibition created new constraints and did not go beyond the boundaries that it attempted to overcome. The game element, which was always present at the exhibition, gave the impression of an attraction that was integrated into the entertainment system. In this regard, the apparent triumph over alienation gave rise to a new level of "society of the spectacle." Visitors became active agents, forming connections with other visitors and artistic objects, but they lost their reflexivity and independence as a separate subject as a result of this unity. Rauning expressed a similar problem when criticising the art of the 1910s (surrealism), which attempted to overcome alienation through spectacular performance: "...he provides the capitalist apparatus of production with desire, but without changing its form" [4, p. 21]. Of course, Slava Polunin's exhibition is not politically engaged, but it shares the same issues as the art of the tens: in both cases, the form of work with the art institute remains constant. As a result, Bishop's notion that a connection to political processes is required for participatory art is rendered obsolete. The most serious issue with "amusement exhibitions" is their forced integration into market relations and entertainment. Thus, despite the potential change in the institute of art, “exhibitions of spectacle” recreate old narratives and remain in the same paradigm.

References

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