Tyyne Claudia Pollmann

The Center devours the Fringe

Dialogue between Prof. Peter Weibel and Tyyne Claudia Pollmann

Karlsruhe 2000 for translate 2020

Pollmann: … as far as our conversation is concerned: I’m not interested in an interview in the conventional sense. I’m most interested in what’s on your mind right now. But I’ve also written down a few keywords. In case there’s something you’re thinking about …

Weibel: Well, what’s on my mind at the moment is something to do with the topic: “universalism and particularism, inclusion and exclusion”. The question is:  what is the function of criticism today. This topic is hidden in the title. – Imagine someone stood up and wrote a well-founded essay against Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Museum. What would happen then? If the criticism were taken seriously, which is quite unlikely, it would still not change the success of this building. People would flock to it, it would remain a powerful building.

Pollmann: Because the criticism has no effect, or it makes the museum more interesting once again, or because it even …

Weibel: That’s the consequence we don’t mention. The idea is then that I say someone with a name writes a critique and you can assume that this critique has no effect. The museum remains as it is, and the millions go inside. You can say, ok, someone is writing a criticism that won’t be taken seriously, because it’s nonsense, it’s such a great building: the criticism is wrong. And that’s the interesting thing for me, then you would say: the criticism rightly achieves nothing. That would be an argument to the contrary, to say that if someone writes a criticism that is wrong and can also be rejected, then it rightly achieves nothing. But let’s imagine that we have an article that can be argued, that is discursive, that can be legitimized – it also has no effect! If that is the case, then we can actually say that if there is no difference in effect between false criticism and genuine criticism, then criticism is superfluous.

Let me give you another example so that you can see what I mean. This museum belongs to the kind of overpowering aesthetic that Wagner also pursues. You can say what you like about Wagner, it doesn’t change anything, Wagner will always be performed again, there will always be Wagnerians, Adorno can write something, anyone can write something, there are countless reviews; that doesn’t change Wagner’s fame and status. It all goes on, Bayreuth may have been in league with Hitler, it doesn’t matter, you have to admit it: Bayreuth continues to exist. You can see from this that there is a kind of aesthetic, let’s call it an overpowering aesthetic, which can only function in this way because it corresponds to something in society. Because why do such people want such buildings, why do they want such operas? In other words, criticism has become irrelevant because there are social forces that are so strong that criticism cannot harm them.

Pollmann: …as you described here in the foreword to “Inclusion/Exclusion”, that culture is one of the pillars of the capitalist structure…

Weibel: Exactly, yes. And if criticism, whether false or genuine, is equally ineffective, then criticism does not have the function that we ascribe to it in our social systems. As a result, there are people who say you have to do it by force. Like RAFs, who then say, ok, now you can only say no, radically, and smash everything up and shoot the people responsible and so on. But we’ve seen that this wasn’t successful either. You can even see that it wasn’t even successful with the people who were there. The student movement under Rudi Dutschke at least had some clear, logical positions, not many, of course, but it was against NATO and it was against America. Today we are already the second generation and if you turn to Foreign Minister Fischer and all these people, they are pro-NATO and pro-America. So, you can also see here that the criticism has not even had any effect in the minds of those who were supporters for a long time. So, you have to get used to a society that has obviously been spreading for decades, in which criticism has no function.

Pollmann: That may be why criticism is being allowed more and more…

Weibel: Criticism is pro-business, criticism is pro-system. We’re coming to that now. Let’s say, for example, that when someone used to say: “a society without a state”, they thought that was the most radical criticism. Now we can say that he was the vanguard of neoliberalism because he was already calling for what the transnational corporations are doing, namely that they are above governments and have their business houses all over the world. In other words, we can now see that the previously left-wing extremist radicalistic guy unfortunately anticipated the neoliberals with his demand to “dismantle the state”. Something like that. And this is something that is now coming to light more and more: that the theoretical constructs that we have developed originate mainly from the 19th century and that they have had the opposite effect. They invented a certain critique in order to achieve something – and they achieved the opposite. That is the end of this critique. And then, when you see that, you have to ask, what role can theory still play today?

To some extent, theory plays a wonderful role in the natural sciences. There you can say, ok, this is a theory about the last particle and the vortex forces of matter, and you can falsify experiments, or you can establish them ecetera ecetera. Whereas, on the other hand, the theories that are put forward in culture seem to obey or have always obeyed the logic of the market more and more.

Pollmann: I’m not at all sure that there is a fundamental difference between culture and science. In science, models are developed that only ever satisfy the theories on which they are based, but not reality. Otherwise, it wouldn’t happen that airplanes crash, that drugs have the wrong effects, science is always limited in its view to the model, if it works on the specially developed model, the theory is accepted, provisionally, so to speak.

And what is believed and what is not depends on who says what to whom and when, i.e. on the social, political circumstances etc…

But I can understand the problem you are articulating, and I read an article on a publication by Laclau, Butler and Zizek in “Texte zur Kunst” on the train here, but I don’t know the book yet. It was about the question of whether there can be a form of radical democracy, or about the attempt to develop such a concept from the former left, from the critical position against capitalism. What do you think of this?

Weibel: The function of theory and critique is really only limited to stabilizing the ruling forces, even if it generates new products in the process. Because every theory, I agree with you, can be scientifically referenced, you discover a new particle, or a new force, or a new law or a new formula, and the same applies to art, every new theory or new culture produces a work or a new form of art and so on, in other words, productivity is not restricted by theory or criticism. Productivity, as it is defined here, is a characteristic of classical capitalism.

So, if you look at it this way, you realize one thing: theory and critique actually form the precondition for a consensus, form the precondition for stabilization.

The way out that I could see is that you have to turn away from this. In other words, the only thing left to do is the way it was done in the French Revolution or in the October Revolution.

You can even say that criticism and theory do not persuade a system to change. You can obviously only abolish a system by force.

This is something that has not been heard for decades, because people believed that Habermas’ theory of communicative action could persuade the system to change in a meaningful and reasoning way. Through enlightenment, through dialog, through communication, through reason and so on, we can change the system, the conditions in this world.

But it seems that this belief has helped the ruling forces, because in the same period of time that this theory is circulating, capital can develop wonderfully and massively and turn the globe into a pile of garbage.

It is something like this: the enemy of the system wins a side battle so that the other can advance into an unoccupied field. Capital and the whole – this is the title of Negri’s and Michael Hardt’s book “Empire” says: “It’s wonderful that people believe such a thing, at that moment we can make them retreat and exploit them excellently.”

And in the last 30 years, an incredible empire of capital has spread globally with an incredible global greed, as you can see now with America, which is no longer even able to accept the Kyoto agreement. Greed no longer even stops at the most important resources on our planet. That’s why I say America is the most dangerous nation in the world.

And right now, I am also looking more and more at what is called pop culture. Pop culture was originally understood as a protest movement. And today the industry sells it as a protest movement. Those who buy a pop record are dissidents. They are against adults, they are against criticism, they are counter-culture, they are protesting. For me it’s extremely perverse to see that pop culture isn’t like that at all, and perhaps never has been. Let’s assume that you make pop like Bob Dylan as a protest against the situation. Let’s assume that this somewhat naive story is true. Then you can see exactly what I said. Pop culture has turned into the opposite, has always been or become an incredible affirmation industry, is a…

Pollmann: … C&A, flared pants…

Weibel: … it’s even worse, it’s become an exploitation industry, an exploitation industry where someone has realized: “There is this potential for protest, there is this desire to dress differently, etc. I have to serve that. I have to cater to that.” In other words, the young people who used to be a protest potential are now being turned into a consumption potential. And we see that the greatest potential for consumers, practically the last class idiots, are the young people, I just have to make sure that I have competent people who legitimize this, who turn the consumption of industrial products into protest.

The musicians, even the rock musicians, even the punk musicians have actually become experts in legitimizing power. And it even goes so far that the coding of protest and the coding of difference and deviation and all that has become part of the system of power. By selling them something, I can manipulate them and extend my rule.

You can now see how far this goes with Madonna, she is not just a cult figure, as in pop culture, but a central figure who receives cheering, uncritical articles from the so-called authorities of high culture, including magazines such as Der Spiegel. These media are completely apolitical. And here too, if someone were to say something against Madonna today, it would no longer have any effect. That’s something that concerns me a lot as an artist, as a museum man. What else can you do now that you think somehow makes sense?

Pollmann: You mentioned different codes. I noticed something about that. I didn’t come from such a middle-class background, but I grew up in a suburb of Düsseldorf. My mother was a foreigner, we had a difficult start there: inclusion/exclusion. We weren’t greeted, we didn’t belong to this educated middle class, as I experienced. But I went to school with the daughters and sons of these parents and these children were also well versed in their parents’ elaborate code and were the ones who later took up these critical positions. When I studied art, I noticed that 90% of these educated middle-class daughters and sons began to make critical art. That it was basically almost like a caste system.

It’s not that a counter-articulation is possible, it means: either you get used to this prevailing, elaborate code, to which I had also developed a resistance through my experiences, or, if you don’t adapt to this code, you won’t be heard. This perpetuates again and again. When I talk to an art critic, for example, who of course elaborates on different levels in a perfectly professional manner, and I see and think and articulate myself from a completely different perspective. It’s not just a language problem, it’s a class problem or a code of belonging…

Weibel: You confirm two things! Firstly, that criticism has become a medium of affirmation, which sounds paradoxical, but is not. Criticism has become a medium of affirmation and the second, the problem of differentiation, i.e. how can you differentiate yourself from another code with the help of a code, these are the mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion. If I don’t master this code, I’m not included, I’m not included, that’s the class and caste system and, what’s even worse, that today the industry brings in the codes of people who are excluded and even engulfs these codes. You can see this very clearly in MTV videos. The rap singers, as impoverished inhabitants, could only wear certain pants or sweaters because they had no money. Then it clearly became normative through television, hype, so that now even the children of rich parents wear such things and wear their basketball caps backwards. That attracts industry, that attracts an audience, I have to make 100,000 pairs of jeans like that now, hanging down to my ankles, i.e. the codes that people have elaborated to distinguish themselves as outsiders are usurped and become mainstream for insiders. Here too, at the level of clothing, critical differentiation no longer works, it is immediately eaten up in the short space of time. There are no more margins.

Pollmann: It’s becoming cultural property at a crazy speed. My son is 3, he turns his hat the other way around and tells me: “Mom, that’s cool.”

Weibel: He learns the codes and sees whether he’s in or out. And the simple question you asked, how can you get out of it? As far as the codes are concerned, you can only react by attacking these codes. That one simply refuses to accept the codes of MTV, the codes of art, these codes. The more society now tries to use this assimilation therapy, to scoff more and more, even the margins, the more the necessity grows, purely out of analysis, so to speak, to say: “We reject these codes, we reject the agreement, we reject the contracts, we reject everything.” This kind of rejection of consensus, this position is historically called terror. And obviously, this is my prophecy now, new forms of terror will emerge, and they will not come from Europe. They will come from South America, Africa and Asia. These people will simply no longer put up with the terror emanating from this hegemonic global empire in the next 10 or 20 years.

Pollmann: Do you really think that…

Weibel: That’s my analysis. We simply can’t do it in Europe. That’s the catastrophe.

Pollmann: We’re already infiltrated…

Weibel: We are completely infiltrated.

Pollmann: I recently heard a report on TV about music, about a new form of rap in Jamaica. Musicians were interviewed there who then said that the hierarchies, the laws, the police, it’s all “Babylon”. They now sing against “Babylon”. Then they were asked a few questions and they said: “We’re not even going to answer that, the question already is “Babylon”!

Weibel: I’m glad you’re telling me that, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m not going to answer that question, I’m not capable of making a pact, I’m not even going to get involved in this consensus! Because if I accept it, I’m already ruined.

Pollmann: That’s also the problem with the codes …

Weibel: … and art has long since lost this function of being able to create new codes. The finding even has a name, it’s a very unpleasant name, the finding is called postmodernism.

Postmodernism wanted to make it clear: Now that we can no longer invent art, we have the right to trash old art. That was the official explanation, to say that we can fall back on history, we can use neoclassical art, we can use pop art, we can use all art and pour it into one building, whereas modernism had said, modern literature, modern art: I’m inventing a new language. That was the claim. Malevich and Mondrian could still say that, we are now inventing a new visual language, a new formal language – and the great manifestos… And postmodernism now has the license to use the old forms, to mix them up; eclecticism. And that’s why people like Tobias Rehberger or Pardo or all kinds of people, video artists like Gordon Douglas, who take Hitchcock and then show 24 hours in slow motion, pick up film material and then deconstruct and dismantle it. I was in the middle of avant-garde film in the 60s, we wanted to develop a new way of seeing and a new formal language and we managed to do that, but society rejected it. Postmodernism didn’t emerge by itself, it is the result of a struggle to reject modernism. The generation I feel closest to, the 60s, learned a new visual language in film, video and so on. But on the one hand it was taken away from us by MTV and the like, or rather the art system didn’t let us and this movement in, and so it was shipwrecked because the art world, the art system, the gallery system, the museums didn’t want it.

Pollmann: What do you attribute that to?

Weibel: It was a fight against modernism, against the claim to create a new language, because people saw that I wouldn’t reach an audience with the new language, that I wouldn’t reach collectors with this language.

And when the new painting came along in ’80, that was the final death knell. In the 70s we just about survived, with small teaching assignments, with something, and then in the 80s, in 79 to be precise, we were told: “Get out”. My gallery called me and said: “Pick up your stuff. Now we finally have the new painting, people love it, it’s good for the public, for the media, it makes glossy pictures, everyone is thrilled.” That was right in the 80s, the beginning of postmodernism with a declaration of war against modernism. Postmodernism didn’t just come quietly, as a recovery phase, but was a deliberate and forcible declaration of war to finally abolish modernism.

Pollmann: From which side?

Weibel: From the restorative forces of the art system itself, that’s the majority of museum people and the majority of newspapers. They pounced on all of this at the time. That was already the beginning of neoliberalism, meaning that the art world was already focusing on consumerism back then, the customers were also the first heroes of neoliberalism, so to speak, those were the baby boomers, those were the 80s, those were the new affluent people who had the money and said: “I want to buy something, I want to invest my money in art.” Art has intertwined and embraced itself with the onset of neoliberalism. Today we have already reached the point where this has been forgotten. Today it has even gone so far that artists no longer have a guilty conscience. Young artists like Thomas Rehberger, and I’m quoting him correctly now, say as a matter of course: “That’s clear, art no longer has the power to find formal languages.” And they lean on the social fields that can still do this: design, fashion and architecture. This means that art itself is already aware of the fact that it only plays second fiddle when it comes to finding forms, new perspectives, and social criticism. And what I mentioned earlier is hidden beneath the surface: the formal expert legitimization of power.

It even goes so far that famous MTV directors like Chris Cunningham are present in exhibitions like Apocalypse or at the Venice Biennale. It’s not as if we’re entering MTV with critical art. The artist is being deprived of the only field he still had. Ok, there is the museum for the artist, he can do an exhibition there. But if the directors see that Chris Cunningham as a famous MTV director brings in 10 times as much audience, because the 14-year-old girls are queuing up there, then the majority of museum directors, who are as hungry for ratings as television, will favor Chris Cunningham. This is sure to draw a crowd. You can see that right now in Venice, a curator like Szeemann is the neoliberal parade curator par excellence. He opens the door to all these currents. And the field is now being taken away from the critical artist because he no longer even has a museum. He already has competition there too; he no longer has a protected space and is fighting with the forces of empire.

Pollmann: But when you say that possibly the terror comes from regions like Asia, Africa or South America, you have to consider that neoliberal, multicultural forces are already at work there too, whether they haven’t already been appropriated…

Weibel: Neoliberalism is precisely the attempt to block the empire against a possible terror. In order to denigrate and exclude the revolt of the excluded, they have the idea of including as much as possible. That’s exactly what the North American and European axis, the so-called First World, is trying to do: to include as much as possible on its terms in order to thwart this terror. But I’m skeptical – you describe the strategy correctly, but in my analysis it won’t work. The fringe can devoured, the center scoffs the fringe, but at the same time a new fringe grows elsewhere.