Artist's Statement

Shshsh. Don't touch
Products which are considered 'works of art' have been singled out as culturally significant objects by those who at any given time and social stratum wield the power to confer the predicate 'work of art' unto them; they cannot elevate themselves from the host of man-made objects simply on the basis of some inherent qualities.

Today museums and comparable art institutions belong to that group of agents in the society who have a sizable although not an exclusive, share in this cultural power on the level of so-called 'high art'. Museum is, among other things, a carrier of socio-political connotations. By the very structure of its existence, it is a political institution.

In principle the decisions of the museum officials, ideologically highly determined or receptive to deviations from the norm, follow the boundaries set by the employers. These boundaries need not be expressly stated in order to be operative. Frequently museum official have internalized the thinking of their superiors to a degree that it becomes natural for them to make the 'right' decisions and a congenial atmosphere reigns between employee and employer.

Museums like asylums and jails have wards and cells - in other words, neutral rooms called 'galleries'. A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world. A vacant white room with lights is still a submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going through a kind of esthetic convalescence. They are looked upon as so many inanimate invalids, waiting for critics to pronounce them curable or incurable. The function of the warden - curator is to separate art from the rest of society. Next comes integration. Once the work of art is totally neutralized, ineffective, abstracted, safe, and politically lobotomized it is ready to be consumed by society. All is reduced to visual fodder and transportable merchandise. Innovations are allowed only if they support this kind of confinement.

With the emergence of the picture shop and museum in the last two centuries as a direct consequence of art's separation from society, art came to mean a dream world, cut off from real life and capable of only indirect reference to the existence most people knew. The gallery and museum crystallized this idea by insisting upon a 'shshsh - don't touch' atmosphere.

Then why show in a commercial gallery?
Commercial art galleries are powerful agents in that small segment of the consciousness industry which we know as the world of so-called high art.

It is apparent that, due to the limited resources of artists for reaching possible clients on their own, the chances for the sale of their products are considerably greater if they are promoted by a gallery. The prestige and consequently the cultural power of an established gallery not only creates a market, it also facilities the securing of teaching jobs and grants, so that there is often a direct connection between an artist's affiliation with a commercial gallery and his/her standard of living and command over productive resources.

Today galleries obviously also hold a key position in the dissemination of the works of an artist. Exhibitions under their auspices generate articles in trade journals & other publications and furnish the grist for the gossip and shoptalk of the industry. Above all it is through such shows and the feedback they receive that an artist is invited to exhibitions in other galleries, in museums & in international art events, which in turn are often organized in collaboration with galleries. Therefore also the access to large audiences through exhibitions in prestigious shows-places with the accompanying consecration, press coverage and increase in market value can be gained more easily through the meditation of a gallery than without.

Works of art, like other products of the consciousness industry, are potentially capable of shaping their consumers' view of the world and of themselves and may lead them to act upon that understanding. Since the exhibition programmes of museums and comparable institutions, with large audiences from the middle and upper middle classes which predominate in contemporary opinion and decision-making are influenced by commercial galleries, it is not negligible which ideologies and emotions are traded in these establishments.

Not surprisingly, institutions and galleries are often resistant to products which question generally held opinions and taste, particularly if the positions they themselves hold are at stake.

With this modicum of openness, wherever suitable, the galleries' promotional resources should be used without hesitation for a critique of the dominant system of beliefs while employing the very mechanisms of that system.